I. RA TIONALE AND METHODOLOGY
During his campaign, then presidential candidate Mr. Rodrigo R. Duterte
announced his desire to bury Mr. Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga
Bayani (LNMB) because “he was a great president and he was a hero … he had the idealism, the vision for this country…”
1 and would have been “the best
president” had he not become a dictator.2 After the election, President-elect
Duterte backtracked and stated: “I will allow the burial of President Marcos …. not because he is a hero, kung ayaw ng iba (if others don’t like it), but because he was a Filipino soldier, period.”
3
The NATIONAL HISTORICAL COMMISSION OF THE PHILIPPINES (NHCP) differs with President
Duterte’s assessment of Mr. Marcos as a ‘great president’ and ‘hero’ and stands on enormous, solid factual evidence to support its position. (The
COMMISSION is
prepared to present such evidence if so asked.) The rules of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, which determine who may be buried at the site, proscribe military “personnel who were dishonorably separated/reverted/discharged from the service” and “authorized personnel who were convicted by final judgement of an offense involving moral turpitude”
4 from being interred at the LNMB. Mr.
Marcos was certainly not ‘dishonorably separated’ from military service but he suffered a worse and more dishonorable fate: he was removed by the collective action of the Filipino people in 1986. He then fled to Hawaii with his family, where he died three years later, isolated from the people who had removed him.
1 Quoted in Pia Ranada, “Duterte in
Ilocos Norte: I will allow Marcos’ burial in
Heroes’ Cemetery,” Rappler, 19 February 2016 http://www.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections/2016/123061-duterte-marcos-burial-libingan-bayani Accessed 1 June 2016.
2 Quoted in Ranada, “Marcos best
president if not for dictatorship – Duterte,” Rappler, 10 February 2016 http://www.rappler.com/nation/politics/elections/2016/121919-duterte-marcos-best-president Accessed 2 June 2016.
3 Quoted in Ranada, “Duterte: Marcos
burial ‘can be arranged immediately’,” Rappler, 23 May 2016 http://www.rappler.com/nation/134025-duterte-marcos-burial-heroes-cemetery Accessed 1 June 2016.
4 Department of National Defense, AFP
Regulation 161-375, “Allocation of Cemetery Plots at the Libingan ng mga Bayani,” Quezon City, 11 September 2000.
5 Sec. 5(a), (e) of R.A. 10086, “An
Act Strengthening Peoples’ Nationalism through Philippine History by Changing the Nomenclature of the National Historical Institute into the National Historical Commission of the Philippines, Strengthening its Powers and Functions and for Other Purposes,” approved on 12 May 2010.The mere fact of the presidency, too, does not automatically mean burial at the
LNMB. Of the eleven deceased Philippine presidents, seven are not buried there
(Presidents Emilio Aguinaldo, Manuel L. Quezon, Sergio Osmeña, Jose P . Laurel, Manuel Roxas, Ramon Magsaysay, and Corazon C. Aquino).
In any case, since President Duterte withdrew his initial reason for burying Mr.
Marcos at the LNMB and now settles on the simple justification that the fallen leader “was a Filipino soldier, period,” the
COMMISSION grounds its objection to
the burial of Mr. Marcos at the LNMB on his status, and especially his record, as a soldier. As this paper will demonstrate, Mr. Marcos’s military record is fraught with myths, factual inconsistencies, and lies. The rule in history is that when a claim is disproven—such as Mr. Marcos’s claims about his medals, rank, and guerrilla unit (Ang Mga Maharlika)—it is simply dismissed. When, moreover, a historical matter is under question, it may neither be established nor taken as fact and therefore cannot serve as the basis of historical recognition of any sort, let alone burial in a site intended, as its name suggests, for heroes.
NHCP MANDATE
The COMMISSION undertakes this study in keeping with its mandate. By law the
COMMISSION is tasked to “conduct and support all kinds of research relating to
Philippine national and local history” and “actively engage in the settlement or resolution of controversies or issues relative to historical personages, places, dates and events.”
5 Its Board’s powers and functions are, among others, to:
(a) Conduct and encourage all manner of research pertaining to Philippine national and local history; …
(e) Approve the declaration of historic structures and edifices such as national shrines, monuments and landmarks or heritage houses;
(f) Prescribe the manner of celebration or commemoration of significant events pertaining to Philippine history; …
(h) Discuss and resolve, with finality, issues or conflicts on Philippine history; … ...